Diatonic Chord Spreading - easy chords and progressions

Tutorial | Jan 09, 2025

In this video, I demonstrate how to create an unusual chord progression tool using Bitwig Studio, experimenting with note stacking, transposing, and modulation to generate interesting harmonic structures. By leveraging Bitwig's note grid and modulation features, I show how to keep the chords within a chosen scale, like D# minor, while allowing for dynamic changes in chord shapes and progressions. Finally, I provide the preset for download so viewers can explore and customize their own chord progressions.

You can watch the Video on Youtube

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• Diatonic Spreader Download: https://bit.ly/3PsA0wj

Summary #

Maybe you don't watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

In this video, I'm thrilled to take you through the process of creating a unique chord progression tool using Bitwig Studio. The inspiration for this comes from an earlier creation of mine, the Polarity Ultra Chord, which I developed about seven years ago in Bitwig Studio 2.0 when it introduced a modulation system. The idea back then was to construct a chord progression tool with the modulator, and to my delight, it still functions perfectly today. However, with the advanced features now available in Bitwig Studio, we can craft something even more exciting.

I'm using an instrument track with the Pianoteq VST, which is fairly straightforward, but the focus here is on leveraging the note grid feature. I start with just a note in and out and connect a virtual keyboard to visualize what’s happening with the notes. The first step is to introduce a note transpose by hooking it up to the pitch signal, allowing us to transpose the notes. By adding a pitch quantizer, I set the desired scale to D sharp minor, deliberately omitting the B note for personal preference. This means it's impossible to play any wrong notes as any key played transposes up and down the scale melodically.

I demonstrate the concept of voice stacking by enabling three voices or stacks, which results in playing three notes simultaneously. By using a stack spread modulator, I adjust the transpose by increments of three semitones, ensuring that all these notes are within the scale of D sharp minor through the pitch quantizer correction. By increasing the stacking, more notes are generated, each separated by either a set number of semitones or increasing by intervals like fifths to create a jazzy feel.

A challenge arises with multiple stacks as they might exceed the available octaves, needing a "wrapper" to keep them within a playable range. I usually tackle this by utilizing a multiplier and divider with a constant, ensuring all notes remain between C3 and C4, or between C3 and C5 for a two-octave span. With modulation on the semitone spread, I provide flexibility to adjust between various semitone intervals using a macro, offering a spectrum of chord shapes just by playing a single note on the keyboard.

Adding variety, I branch off to create bass notes on a different channel by utilizing only the pitch signal from the pitch quantizer, without wrapping, and pulling notes an octave lower. I simplify the bass output by restricting it to the first voice stack, effectively using the root note for the bass.

Further exploration includes using a pitch 12 modulator, which provides access to all notes in an octave for more intricate modifications to the chord structure. This creates even more unique chord voicings by slightly altering how notes are spread apart or adjusting octaves. There’s room for customization by introducing specific note-based modulation or disabling certain voices for variation.

Finally, I encourage experimentation with static pitches and separate channels for playing root notes directly, facilitating the composition of chord progressions that can be recorded into note clips. This setup can lead to discovering intriguing and harmonious chord progressions, although results can be hit-or-miss depending on modulation choices.

I've made this preset available for download in the video's description for those interested. It's a relatively simple setup, but the enjoyment comes from manipulating the transpositions, modulations, and note spreads to produce captivating sounds. Thanks for tuning in; remember to like the video and subscribe to the channel for more creative content. See you next time!

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00:00] Hey folks, welcome back to another video and today we are gonna create another unusual
[00:00:05] chord progression tool because it's so fun to create these devices, in my opinion.
[00:00:11] But first I want to show you this here, polarity ultra chord, I made this almost seven years
[00:00:16] ago in Bitwig Studio 2.0 and back then Bitwig Studio introduced here the modulation system
[00:00:21] with all these fancy modulators and I thought back then maybe let's create a chord progression
[00:00:27] to go with this and it worked and it still works seven years later.
[00:00:32] But today we have much much better options of course inside of Bitwig Studio, I'm using
[00:00:37] here an instrument track with the piano tech BST on it.
[00:00:47] So nothing special and we want to use here the note grid so let's create this here and
[00:00:55] in there we have just a note in and a note out and maybe I'll also give you here a virtual
[00:01:02] keyboard, you can see what's going on actually with the notes right.
[00:01:11] And then we introduce here a transpose, a note transpose and hook this up to the pitch
[00:01:15] signal so with this we can just transpose the notes.
[00:01:31] So then we can use a pitch quantizer here, hook this up to the transpose and now we
[00:01:37] can input here our desired scale, I'm using a D sharp minor without the B, I don't like
[00:01:44] the B, don't ask me okay.
[00:01:46] So with this we can't actually play wrong notes, it's impossible.
[00:02:02] I'm just playing one note on the keyboard just by modulating this, it sounds nice because
[00:02:07] you just go up and down the scale, pretty easy.
[00:02:12] So then we can, let's delete this here and we can also use now voice stacking here and
[00:02:18] say three voices or three stacks okay.
[00:02:22] So now we play actually three notes but with the same pitch.
[00:02:27] So we have to introduce here a stack spread modulator and switch this to value and then
[00:02:34] we modulate you to transpose by let's say three semitones.
[00:02:39] So now we have three notes like this and they're all kind of, if we disable this here, three
[00:02:49] semitones apart right.
[00:02:51] So one, two, three, one, two, three but here this A is actually not at the scale of the
[00:02:57] sharp minor.
[00:02:58] Then we enable here the pitch quantizer, it's corrected to A sharp here.
[00:03:10] So all these chords you create with this modulation now are in the scale of D sharp minor no matter
[00:03:15] what you do.
[00:03:16] To do here A minor or C major, so we get the major chord here, I hope this is clear.
[00:03:31] Okay, let's go back here to D sharp minor, so we can also increase here the stacking
[00:03:37] to four so we have more notes.
[00:03:47] So the more stacks you have, the more this transpose goes up for each stack and the more
[00:03:53] notes you create and all these notes are more or less three semitones apart because we modulate
[00:04:00] this here by three.
[00:04:02] Very easy right.
[00:04:03] We can also modulate this by seven so each note is now a fifth apart.
[00:04:16] Let's go here four, two, three.
[00:04:30] That becomes kind of jazzy.
[00:04:33] The problem here is when you increase the voice stacking of course you go higher and
[00:04:38] higher in octaves and sometimes you reach the top, the highest octave right so we have
[00:04:44] to wrap it again.
[00:04:49] So we can bring in here a wrapper and I almost do this in every video now so I don't explain
[00:05:03] it, multiply, divide in a constant and we use ten now so now all these notes are always
[00:05:21] between C3 and C4 no matter how many notes you introduce here.
[00:05:34] And maybe you can extend this to let's say two octaves so you go for five so now everything
[00:05:39] is here between C3 and C5.
[00:05:52] And maybe this is too high so we go one octave lower.
[00:06:12] And we modulate this here by we have seven so we can use your macro and we use this macro
[00:06:20] to actually modulate the modulation strength of this modulator by just using this here
[00:06:26] and then click here and then you can change the amount so all the way up we have then
[00:06:33] seven semitones and when we pull this down we have your zero as you can see it right
[00:06:37] so we can kind of switch between three semitones, two semitones, five semitones between each
[00:06:47] note and we can spread these notes apart.
[00:06:57] So I'm just playing one note on the keyboard.
[00:07:08] We have here seven stacks so seven notes we are generating.
[00:07:13] So with this we get all already a nice variety of chord shapes and chords in general they
[00:07:21] are all diatonic of course so it's maybe a bit boring but you can still get out a lot
[00:07:27] of different sounds and progressions with this.
[00:07:31] So we duplicate here our output and here we want to create the bass notes we use a different
[00:07:37] channel just to have a small difference there distinction and we want to use the pitch signal
[00:07:45] here coming out of the pitch quantizer not the wrapper because we don't want to wrap
[00:07:50] the bass note here and use also an octaver here and we pull this down maybe one octave
[00:08:03] and we have multiple notes now in fact we have seven notes for the bass note which is
[00:08:08] not what we want so we use a voice talk here and hook this up to the gate and here we disable
[00:08:15] all the voices except the first one which is the bass note which is the lowest stack
[00:08:21] which is the root note you can see here the red one is the bass
[00:08:44] maybe too many notes so let's pull this down
[00:08:55] and then you can play around and maybe find some interesting chords you like you can also
[00:08:59] use here what's the name pitch 12 so with this we pull the leg here down it's by default
[00:09:07] it's I don't know one millisecond or something like this so I pull this down all the time
[00:09:13] so there is no leg then we have here access to all the notes in an octave and then we
[00:09:24] can modulate something with this so let's say I play this note here and I want to change
[00:09:32] this maybe disable here per voice also this here per voice is off okay so here with this
[00:09:42] note I want to reduce maybe how far apart these notes are so I want to have a different
[00:09:48] chord shape until I find a sound that I like
[00:10:06] or maybe with this here I want to go one octave higher or we can actually also use here talk
[00:10:34] for this then say with this note I want to disable some of these
[00:10:57] one here right so you can take these modulations here and dial in some changes here and there
[00:11:23] are different keys and it sounds a bit different and you always get nice interesting chord
[00:11:29] progressions and all of them are diatonic and fit to your key right so it's yeah boring
[00:11:36] and easy at the same time more or less we also can do the same trick I showed you in
[00:11:45] an earlier video here where we use instead of a dynamic pitch we use one yeah one static
[00:11:59] pitch here and we maybe also want to use here only the bass note or the bass or just one
[00:12:07] stack actually and this one plays here the root of our key higher and different different
[00:12:24] channel and then of course you can record this then again into a note clip and create
[00:12:46] chord progressions with this I put here this this preset in the description below so you
[00:12:52] can download it if you want to it's actually not complicated but it's so fun to play around
[00:12:59] with these transposings in here and modulations and spreading out notes and fifth or insert
[00:13:05] and third or in I don't know in fourths and then come up with something that sounds interesting
[00:13:12] and then add some modulation here on top for different notes different keys different modulations
[00:13:18] and you get interesting chord progression sometimes not always but sometimes that's it for this
[00:13:25] video thanks for watching see you next time and leave a like if you liked the video and
[00:13:29] subscribe to the channel of course bye
[00:13:31] [BLANK_AUDIO]